If you can afford fags, you can afford e-cigarettes.

Indeed, this is just one more illustration of an all-too-familiar foible of our new ruling classes: if they disapprove of something (fox-hunting, incandescent lightbulbs, smoking in pubs) they ban it. if they approve (condoms for schoolchildren, books extolling the joys of EU membership etc) they think the state, or rather taxpayers, should provide it.

In this case, the only unusual feature is that they have swung so abruptly from wanting to outlaw e-cigarettes to proposing to dish them out free.